


Slivers

by gabsrambles



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabsrambles/pseuds/gabsrambles
Summary: Tumblr prompt: Maggie meets Alex's new girlfriend and gets really jealous.This prompt is now turning into something multi-chaptered. Angst warning.





	1. Chapter 1

Maggie had bought this on herself. She knew that. It was the harsh truth of it all, and it was about to bite her in the ass. Alex had kissed her and she´d pulled away, the burning bright of Alex´s eyes shining at her, and even as Maggie´s lips tingled, pushing for more, she´d turned her down.

And felt her own heart shatter a little inside her ribs as Alex had walked away, her face starting to fall right as she turned away. 

She´d said no for Alex´s sake. Maggie couldn´t hold a relationship together. She´d proven that time and time again. She had a messy trail of pieces of broken hearts behind her–some of them her own–and she had no intention of adding Alex´s to that list. Not Alex. Alex was everything.

So Maggie pulled her back in with words of friendship and, slowly, they´d built that back up again. Maggie would have Alex Danvers in life as a friend, even if she couldn´t have her how she really craved. And Alex would move on and be fine- better than fine, really.

And it had been great, for a while. Maggie continued to lose at pool, and they followed the steps of an Alien organisation and tried to hunt them down before they became the hunted. Alex and she were streamlined, moving side by side like they´d been partners for years.

And little by little, Maggie felt herself fall apart and build back up. Maggie, who had never needed a partner. Who worked alone. Maggie, who held people at bay with a sliver of space, never letting them come too close. Maggie, who didn´t fall head over heels, especially for newly out girls who were allergic to the word lesbian. Or bi. Or queer. She didn´t do that.

None of it.

So it was entirely her fault that she was standing here, shaking hands with Alex´s girlfriend. Who was a knock out. Stunning. Curls and curls of hair and flawless skin. Piercing eyes and an easy, curling smile. 

And, worse, she was funny. And nice.

“First rounds on me,” she said with a wink.

Maggie wanted to throw her pool cue after her. Maybe she´d hit her perfectly sculpted ass. 

Alex turned to her, eyes bright and colour high in her cheeks. Maggie could have been the cause of that. All those reasons she had seemed to echo with a clang in her head now. Months past turning Alex down and the tables had flipped, Maggie losing her words and her heart racing in her chest as Alex stared across the pool table at her, grinning. 

“How great is she?” 

Maggie made herself smile. Her cheeks hurt. “Oh, she´s just great.”

Alex didn´t seem to notice she gritted it out.

And maybe she could have gotten over it. Ignored the ugly curl of jealousy in the pit of her stomach, but she started to see Alex less and less.

“Sorry,” Alex breathed into the phone. “I´m meeting Sam for coffee.”

“No problem.” Maggie said, every time.

“Sam,” she’d spit later, her fist slamming into the punching bag. “I’ll get the next round!” She mimicked, her voice high and mocking, a roundhouse kick flying. “No, you stay here, I’ll go save orphans and foster puppies.”

And then guilt always followed, because stupid Sam was stupid lovely.

Alex often invited her along.

“Hey, we’re at the bar tonight.” Maggie would try not to sigh. ‘We’. “Why don’t you join?”

And because she was a masochist, as well as a borderline sociopath, apparently, she’d go some of the times. Mostly, because she just wanted to see Alex. Instead, she´d watch them smile at each other and move around each other’s space, easy and comfortable. Sam’s hand would fall on Alex’s knee, and Alex wouldn’t bat an eye. 

Maggie would hold her glass so tight, she thought it was going to shatter. 

There was lipstick on Alex’s neck one night, and Maggie almost felt ill.

She’d thought more than she should have, of her lips on Alex’s neck and the sounds she’d make as she panted in Maggie’s ear. 

“She´s just so great, Alex.”

She reaffirmed it, every time.

Then one night, Maggie went to the bathroom, her heart in her throat. Alex had laughed at a joke Sam had made, the sound full of delight and Maggie just needed some air, a moment away to pull herself together to then go back and pretend to be happy for Alex.

Because she was. She wanted Alex happy. That’s all she wanted. 

She’d just thought she wanted Alex happy, separate from her.

But it turns out Maggie wanted Alex happy with Maggie.

She splashed water on her wrists and stared at her reflection. She narrowed her eyes at herself. She really needed to pull herself together. She could do this. She´d get past this.

The door creaked open and Maggie turned to awkwardly sidle past whoever had come in, but instead turned and came face to face with those eyes that were so soft and full of something Maggie had never had a word for. 

“Alex,” she breathed.

“Maggie.” Alex cocked her head, her arms crossed. “Are you okay?”

Maggie swallowed. And took a deep breath, ‘yes’ armed and ready on her tongue. Instead, though, what fell out was, “No.”

She stepped forward, her heart going crazy in her chest, and tugged on Alex’s shirt, tugging her forward so they fell into each other. Her hands slipped up and into Alex’s hair, pushing up on her tiptoes to crash her lips to hers. 

It went on too long.

But that’s what made it so fantastic.

It went on so long, because Alex kissed her back, after a second of stiffened surprise. Nails bit into the back of Maggie’s neck, scraping with a tinge of desperation. She arched into Alex at the sharp sensation, and Alex breathed a throaty moan into her mouth, a gift for Maggie to keep with her for later. The warmth of Alex’s tongue slipped past her lips and Maggie wanted, then, to do this forever.

And then Alex had pulled back, her mouth open in shock, cheeks pink and lips kissed red.

And Maggie tried to give her something then. To take the blame. But this was why Maggie should have steered completely clear. Already, Alex’s eyes were welling up, her girlfriend just outside the door, a presence that pressed into the room.

Maggie broke people. She´d always known that was what she´d do.

“I’m so sorry, Alex.”

And she fled, the door slamming shut behind her and in ten long strides, the cold air outside the bar slapping at her overheated cheeks.


	2. Bits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, everyone was pretty adamant they wanted more (to be fair I did leave it in an angsty place)...so I´ve decided to continue this. Hope you like it. Thanks for all the feedback--comments make fic writer´s worlds go round :)

Maggie was pacing

Around and around her apartment, which wasn´t big enough for this kind of activity. Her body craved space, her mind craved an ocean, an open field—anything but four enclosing walls that just kept pressing down on her.

She was an idiot.

Really, Maggie knew that. She knew she was an idiot. It was why she´d told Alex no in the first place. Years of knowing herself, making the same mistakes and leaving herself and others with tender hearts and bruised insides had taught her so. And Alex deserved more than that. Alex deserved everything and anything. All the good and all the right in the world. She made Maggie border on poetic and that was a terrible sign.

So why had Maggie kissed her?

She rounded her sofa for the fifty-second time—she was counting—and started a new lap.

Alex had kissed her back, with a fervency that had left Maggie aching and her chest tight. Even now, at the thought, her stomach swooped low and, in frustration, a low moan left her lips. Why couldn´t Alex have just pushed her away, looking aghast? Why did she have to scrape her nails down Maggie´s neck and slip a thigh between hers, her lips hungry and tongue just brushing against Maggie´s own before she´d pulled away with a quivering mouth and shocked eyes?

Why did Maggie feel like she could fall into Alex Danvers and never crawl her way out?

You´d think she´d have learnt. Stay away from the good ones. Because Maggie had just made a huge mess.

There had been tears in Alex´s eyes.

A knock at the door made her freeze. Glance at her watch. Almost eleven. She´d left the bar an hour ago. For most of it, she´d walked the city, the cold sending her back inside to pace her living room.

The knock sounded again. Insistent.

Maggie pulled the door open to reveal a blinking, wild-eyed Alex. Her cheeks were flushed, a bloom of red that streaked across her skin. Even there, heart quickening at the sight of a clearly angry woman, Maggie wanted to trace her tongue over that patch of red, feel the warmth and know what it meant when Alex gasped wetly against her neck.

“Alex.”

Alex stormed past, her shoulder brushing Maggie´s, and Maggie closed the door behind her, turning just as Alex paused in her living room, spinning on her heel, her hands thrown up. “What the hell, Maggie?”

Maggie pressed her lips together. What the hell indeed? She really hadn´t planned that.

“I have a girlfriend!”

“I know.” That, Maggie did know. It was like a stab in her gut. One she deserved, because she´d all but pushed Alex to get one. She  _knew_ all of that, damn it.

She just hadn´t anticipated the jealousy the would writhe in her gut.

“You told me—“ Alex was staring her down, and in that moment, Maggie really felt their height difference “—You—you told me you wanted to be friends.”

“I did.”

“You told me get out there.” Alex was gesticulating wildly, her voice raising to mimic Maggie, “’ Danvers, go! Experience it all, the shiny unknown lesbian wonderverse’.”

“That´s not exactly how I—“

The look Alex shot her made her shut her mouth.

“So I worked hard, Maggie.” And the gesticulating stopped, her arms crossed over her chest, shoulders hunching inwards, just a little. “I worked hard, to get over you. It wasn´t easy. I don´t think you understand how I felt.” She raised a hand when Maggie went to interject, words at the ready on her tongue about first crushes, and how much Maggie really did know. “I fell hard, for you. And fast. I—I know that. But you told me, basically, to get over it. So that´s what I did. I tried to be your friend, even though it-it hurt, a  lot, for a long time.” Maggie swallowed and couldn´t look away from those wide, dark eyes that felt like they could swallow her whole. She´d heard the term ‘doe-eyed’ and hadn´t realised just what it meant until Alex had looked at her. Eyes that could tell a person everything, if you knew how to read her. And Maggie thought she could. “But then I got out there. And I met Sam.”

“I know, Alex.”

“I don´t think you do.” Alex took a stride forward and Maggie wanted to take one of her own and meet her in the middle. “Sam is my _girl_ friend. I-I really like her. A lot. She´s good, and funny, and she gets me. And she doesn´t, she doesn´t mess with me head.” Alex´s voice had dropped, the words scraping raw passed her throat to spill in the space between them. “I have a girlfriend.”

“I know.” Maggie hated that her own was as raw as Alex´s.

And then Alex was striding forward again, colliding with her until Maggie thumped against the door, the sound reverberating and a groan falling from her lips that Alex captured. Maggie wondered, briefly, as fingers traced over her ribs, under her shirt, trailing lines of fire against her skin, if Alex knew Maggie could fall apart against her fingertips. Alex´s hair was in her hands, her neck under her palm, a pulse bounding hard and rapid against it. Maggie wanted to close her fingers, to take that feeling with her in case this all Alex was going give her.

There was a voice in the back of her head, whispering that they should stop. The feeble protests drowned out shamefully easily as Alex´s tongue, hot and wet, flicked against the back of her teeth. Maggie clung to her, her fingers most likely leaving little prints, and she liked that idea. A pattern of herself on Alex´s skin.

Then teeth were scraping down her jaw, lips on her neck and Maggie´s head fell back against the door so hard she almost saw stars. Her hand grasped at Alex´s neck, the other falling to splay against the door, fingertips digging into wood to try and keep herself steady. Alex´s fingers were at her belt, fumbling with it, and then a button and a tongue was soothing a bite mark on Maggie´s collarbone and Maggie´s knees were starting to shake. The thigh between her legs wouldn´t stop and she was going to come undone, right here against the door while Alex Danvers was all rage and fire and fury.

And Maggie couldn´t bring herself to stop her. She´d spent months dancing around Alex, and trying to hide how she felt. She´d put Alex through hell and herself through hell, and now all she wanted to do was let Alex pick her apart and leave her however she wanted.

“Bedroom.” Maggie´s voice was hoarse, broken, tearing past her lips as fingers pressed against her underwear. “Bedroom.”

And she pushed them backwards, their lips barely parting, to stumble in the direction she knew her room was. Jackets hit the floor, shoes were kicked to thump against furniture and walls. When they fell into the bed, skin flush and warm, Alex´s mouth traced over her chest and down Maggie´s stomach.

It took a mere minute for her to fall apart, her arms still trembling as she tugged Alex back up, hand already sliding down.

* * *

Maggie woke up to sore limbs, a clock telling her it was just passed three am, and an empty bed. Only Maggie´s clothes littered the living room and Alex Danver´s taste was on her lips even as she was nowhere to be seen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback always appreciated


	3. Squeeze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your kudos and comments on this work :)

Alex was many things.

She was a borderline alcoholic binge drinker, when it suited her--note the borderline; it was important to her. She was a mess of contradiction. She was a sister, before anything else. She was a workaholic. She could be wildly protective. She was stubborn--no could be there. She was, apparently, a lesbian. That one was new, relatively speaking. She also, through discovering that last one, had clicked with some pretty intense tingles for Kara´s aunt, compounded by that one dream Alex had tried to push to the back of her mind.

She was not, however, a cheater.

At times she could be a liar. It was part of the job. So she couldn´t really list that. But she wasn´t a liar without reason? Maybe she could say that.

Whatever, she just wasn´t a naturally dishonest person.

And especially not a cheater.

Damn it. She _liked_ Sam. Everything she´d said to Maggie, while all the time inching closer, had been true. Sam was sweet. And funny. And loud, in a way that drew people in, not pushed them away. She was mostly understanding about the randomness of Alex´s job, which said a lot. Alex´s job could call her away at a moment´s notice. And, importantly—Kara liked her. Which meant so much, to Alex.

Kara meant everything, really.

But how close Maggie had come to challenging that was terrifying.

Fucking Maggie.

Alex stood at the entrance of the building she´d arrived at, shivering in the cold of three am air, feeling raw and peeled back, nerve endings exposed. There was an ache in her forearm, a burn in her thighs. She wanted to shower, in water so hot it might actually wash this feeling away.  
  
Mostly, though, there was shame, bubbling through her veins.

Fucking Maggie.

Alex went to open the door but then let her hand drop away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and let her back fall against the rough brick wall.

Another thing that Alex was good at, was compartmentalising. It was all that got her through life. Her dad, his death, the news that he wasn´t damn dead and there wasn´t anything Alex could do that she hadn´t already tried that might find him, her mother´s distant coldness, that creeping feeling that Alex, really, was never going to be _enough_. For what, she didn´t know. But enough.

Just that word made a lump grow in her throat.

But the point was, Alex could shove that shit way down deep nothing could access it but her occasional dip into over-drinking.

And that´s what she´d done with Maggie. Whose rejection had split something inside Alex, something she´d never realised could be split. It had stung, like the time Kara had hugged her too tight, in the early days, and Alex hadn´t needed super hearing to hear how her rib had cracked. That´s what it had felt like, to hear Maggie say 'no'.  
  
Alex had flown in on a high, about realising how it felt to really _like_ someone. To feel a flutter in her stomach and awe at their beauty and an itch in her fingers to claw them closer.

But then she´d discovered that with that high came a huge fall, and no one really mentioned that. Alex had gone her entire life not feeling that kind of drop. It made her think that discovering the upside wasn´t really worth it.

So she shoved it away and tried to be friends with Maggie. Because Alex didn´t want her out of her life completely, even if she couldn´t have her how she wanted.

It took months to finally feel like dating.

The first had been a bust. A dramatic one. Alex had never been so nervous--she´d stuttered and knocked things over and had felt her cheeks glow so red she thought she´d melt.

The second was nicer. It lead to date number two, then three. Then Alex had gotten cold feet when the girl had been a little pushy. Or maybe she hadn´t been pushy but Alex had panicked because being intimate was actually kind of terrifying.

The third was Sam.

Alex´s stomach turned over and she thought she was going to throw up right there on the pavement. Cheating. It was a terrible thing to do to a person. Alex had seen friends in her early twenties spiral dangerously, their hearts shattered and trust in pieces when various girlfriends or boyfriends had cheated on them.

She never thought she´d had it in her, and she wasn´t entirely sure if the guilt and shame she felt was for what she did to Sam, or for knowing that she was a person capable of doing it.

A horrendous mix of the two, maybe, that was swirling in her stomach and leaving bile to scorch her throat.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. Pain bounced around her brain but she just rode it out, not even flinching. How did people go on to cheat, serially? She was an hour past it and her insides felt like they were being dissolved. Her foot, pressed against the well, her knee bent out in front of her, bounced endlessly. She chewed her bottom lip and winced.

Maggie had bitten it, at various points over the few hours.

Her nails had raked down Alex´s back.

Her thighs had quivered.

Alex bit her lip harder and tears formed behind her lids. She squeezed them closed and refused to let herself have the comfort of letting them fall.

Why had Alex gone back?

Why?

Why?

Angrily, she opened her eyes and span, yanking the door open and climbing the stairs. Her fist pounded on the door. It only took a split second.

“Alex, what´s wrong?”

Kara.

Alex could have fallen into her, but she crossed her arms and walked through, her teeth still worrying her lips.

“Alex!” The door closed and with a woosh Alex had been listening to more years than she hadn´t, Kara was in front of her. All concerned eyes and soft voice. “What happened? Are you okay?”

That lump in Alex´s throat almost burst and she swallowed heavily, wanting to push it down, drown it out. “I—I´m fine.”

“No,” damn Kara and her soft voice, “you´re not. You´re shaking.”

And she was. That was embarrassing. Maggie had shaken. Her entire body had trembled. She´d stared up at Alex like she was everything she´d ever wanted and Alex had closed her eyes and kissed her, hard and fast, in the hopes that that look would go away and when she´d open her eyes, she wouldn´t be doing something that she´d never thought she could.

Why had she gone? She´d left Sam behind in the bar, her thoughts full of that kiss and Maggie´s lips and that shattered look her eye had held right before she´d kissed her. And blazed with anger. How dare Maggie? Alex had claimed a headache and gone to her place to do what? Alex hadn´t planned it.

Had she?

“I—I…Kara.” Alex hated the crack in her voice, over her sisters name. “I fucked up.”

And Kara stilled, her face glasses-free and her pyjamas soft looking, just like her eyes. She took a small step back, and Alex knew: it wasn´t out of disgust of the words, but she´d finally realised Alex needed space. That Alex was about to shake apart, but someone near her wasn´t going to help it, but only make it happen faster.

“Okay.” Kara´s voice was soothing. “Tell me. What did you do?”

“I slept with Maggie.” The words were acrid on her tongue and she wished that they were tangible. That she could reach out and grasp them back, fingers desperately shoving them back down. But she couldn´t, so she just kept going. “I—I cheated on Sam.”

Kara loved Sam.

Kara was still very cool towards Maggie.

“You…what? When?”

“Uh. Just now.”

Kara took a step back again, and it ached to know it wasn´t for the same reason this time.  Alex drew a shaky breath.

“How—how did that happen? I thought you were happy, with Sam?”

“I was—I, I am. I just… I fucked up.”

“Yeah, Alex, you said that." Kara was all light and positivity. Until she wasn´t, and her voice could flash through with a tone like that. "What happened?”

Kara´s voice was back to bordering on concern, and that was all that was keeping Alex from fleeing.

“We were at the bar. A group of us. And Maggie seemed off. So I followed her to the bathroom and she, she kissed me, for a second.”

Or a minute. That was all a blur.

“She kissed you?” Kara´s cheeks went red. “After putting you through all that months ago? She kissed you, when you have a girlfriend?”

Alex nodded. “And I was angry, too. It´s why I stopped her.”

Alex tried not to think about that. That _that_ was why. Not because it wasn´t what she wanted.

Kara´s shoulders relaxed. “You stopped her? That´s good, Alex. I thought you said you slept with her?”

“I did.”

“In the bathroom?” Kara´s face wrinkled up and if it had been any other situation Alex would have thought about how adorable her sister was.

“No. I went to her apartment. Afterwards.”

Kara´s posture was stiff again. “So you—you went to her place. This was planned?”

Alex shook her head, her throat tight again and aching. She dropped onto Kara´s couch. Something poked her back and she pulled out a cushion, clutching it in her lap and staring up at Kara. “No. I was so mad, Kara. Like angry, on a cellular level. I went there to yell at her.”

“And instead you…”

“I did yell.”

Kara sat in a chair opposite her. “And?”

“And I was so mad. And then I kissed her instead.”

“Why, Alex? I thought you were over her? You spent so much time, getting over her.”

She had. So much time had been dedicated to shoving Maggie into that box in her brain. “I don´t know why.”

"Come on, Alex. Why?"

"I don´t know!"

“You have to. Why would you do it? Why would you hurt Sam, like that? Why would you go to Maggie and--”

“Because I love her!”

It exploded out her mouth and Alex stared, wide eyed, at Kara. Who stared straight back. The silence in the room was deafening. There was no taking that back.

Alex wanted a drink.

Something straight, on the rocks.

Alex swallowed. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Kara asked.

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Oh.”

“I don´t know what that means. Wait.” Kara straightened. “Did you only just realise that?”

Alex nodded, clutching the cushion to her chest. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

That silence was back. “So what are you going to do?”

“I have to tell Sam.”

“And then?”

“I don´t know, Kara. I´ve never—I´m so—I´m so ashamed, of myself—“

And that woosh, and Kara was next to her, arms around her and Alex let herself crack, there. One of the only places she ever did, the tears hot on her cheeks and shame even hotter in her belly.

She fell asleep, eventually, her head on Kara´s lap and Kara´s fingers in her hair.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Alex went to Sam´s. Her shift at the hospital didn´t start until the afternoon, and Alex needed to come clean.

It wouldn´t help. But Sam didn´t deserve this. A lie stretched over their lives.

“You what?”

Alex swallowed and Sam, blinking, was ashen. “I slept with someone else.”

She could hardly say the words, they choked her so badly. Scraped out of her.

Sam took a step back. “Was it Maggie?”

Alex didn´t even have to answer, the shocked flick of her head enough. Sam gave a laugh that left Alex in pain with how mirthless it was. “How—“

“Alex. She was so clearly into you. I just…I thought you…” Sam´s voice broke then and tears were thick in her eyes. She lifted her chin. “Get out.”

“Sam—“

“Get. Out.”

So Alex did. She paused at the door, her hand on the knob. “Know I´m sorry. I don´t—I´m sorry. More than I can say.”

And Sam didn´t say anything. Alex left.

And went to a bar. Dirty and sticky, as any bar open at eight am would be.

She ordered a whiskey. Straight. On ice.

She knocked it back in two sips and ordered another.

That shame wouldn´t go away.

Maybe the drink would burn it out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always appreciated.


End file.
